Peter J. Grieco

P e t e r   J .   G r i e c o

100 Masterpieces of Painting

One looks at the scene as a whole

characterized by connectives 

between lines & figures, genre studies

depicting landscapes, streets, actors—

very soon, Tiepolo was drowning.

Unlike nine-tenths of these portraits

the sitter appears head-on, but

as regards truth, it’s better to go

a little beyond it. Industrial

design techniques produced 

the first machine pictures.  Then came 

Nakht & his wife, with necklace 

& sistra, by the light of a hat 

pricked with candles, the nave 

marbled with colonnades.

Based on the 100 Masterpieces of Painting: from Lascaux to Basquiat, from Florence to Shanghai  by Michel Nuridsany ; [translated from the French by David Radzinowicz], Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2006

Composition procedure was to use the cover—which pictures many of the paintings—to select 10 images by landing a dime on the cover.  Then I found the selected paintings by turn and picked out a line from about the middle of each gloss.

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